Mario Cristobal: Miami is still a 'work in progress' while working back towards being a national brand

Mario Cristobal recognizes that while Miami is on the right track, there’s still a long way to go until they’re considered a national brand once again.

After suffering his first loss as the leader of the Hurricanes, Cristobal explained that he believes Miami beat themselves against Texas A&M, and that’s not going to happen in the future.

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“It’s a national brand, and I think people recognize that we’re making progress,” stated Cristobal. “We said from Day 1, we’re back to work. You know, that’s the most important part. Back to work. We’re working at it and we’re improving, and we feel that — there is no, I would say you know, you don’t take any comfort in playing close games. You never have. I don’t think anybody that’s competitive will ever do that. Is there progress? Yeah. Is there more to be made? Absolutely. So our appetite and our desire to be great has to be going through the roof right now, because in several aspects, we were our worst enemy. In several aspects, Miami beat Miami. We take that personally. Complete ownership. Every coach, every player, every administrator.

“We are more than eager to get back to work and address those things, so we could get a breakthrough and push past those limitations placed upon ourselves. That’s what we’re looking forward too. Just getting right back at it.”

As you can see, Mario Cristobal has identified the things Miami needs to work on moving forward. Time will tell if the Miami leader can right the ship, but he’s got the right plan to do so.

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Moreover, Miami suffered its first loss of the Mario Cristobal era last weekend in College Station. The Hurricanes fell to a rebounding Texas A&M team at home by a score of 17-9, earning their first tally in the loss column. The Aggies fell to Appalachian State in that same building a week prior, but were definitely far more locked in and focused in the primetime game vs. The U. 

The crowd was also a much bigger factor in the higher profile game. As is often the case, A&M’s “12th Man” loomed large on the visiting foe, going bananas on defense to befuddle opposing QB Tyler Van Dyke while hyping their own defenders up. The result was a zero-touchdown, single-digit scoring output from Miami. Nine points by way of three field goals. 

Yet, in wake of the game, Mario Cristobal believes the raucous environment had very little to do with the Hurricanes’ struggles. In fact, he thought his players handled the environment at Kyle Field very well. 

“I think they’re an awesome environment. I think Texas A&M does a great job on game day. Their fans are behind it 100%. They do a really good job. But I don’t think it played a factor in the game,” stated Cristobal. “We did jump offsides one time. Whether that be due to noise or not, I don’t know. Hard to tell because we didn’t have any other ones like that. 

“In terms of handling the environment, I thought they did really well, especially at the line of scrimmage. I thought those guys, they handled it really well. And we’re going to have to get better. Because we’re going to play other talented teams in the conference. And one of the biggest messages to our team is…because we played a tight game on the road and gave ourselves a chance to tie or win at the end doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to play well going forward, right. A lot of lessons to be learned and, you know, you can’t get better unless you legitimately look at your mistakes and learn from them, right. And you certainly can’t get better if you keep living in the past. So we got to shake this off and get to work and get better at the things that make practice elite.”